"The chances of it happening if you ARE dressed that way therefore increase greatly."

Where is your evidence of this? Emma B presented research earlier in the thread which demonstrates that dressing "provocatively" is not linked to the majority of rape cases.

"WHY would any woman want to walk around dressed in such a suggestive manner in the first place? It's always puzzled me."

Well, many people might wonder why you wear face glitter and all that eyeliner and twirl around suggestively in front of bands when everyone else is sitting down and watching a concert, but is it their place to judge you? Some people would consider that behaviour to be sexually provocative, attention-seeking and inappropriate. Does that mean any man has the right to decide that your behaviour implies that you are cheap and sexually available, and that you deserve to be raped? Of course not. But for someone who always screeches about their personal freedoms, you are terrible for wanting to curtail the freedoms of others.

This idea that your generation never dressed in a provocative way is ridiculous as well. Everything is relative. I'm sure your mother (or her friends) probably thought girls walking around in miniskirts in the 60s looked like prostitutes. Standards and fashions change through the generations, and what is acceptable in one generation is beyond the pale for another (usually older) one. Twas always thus. I don't particularly like seeing half-naked girls in town centres, but I worry more about them catching their death than provoking a man to rape them - and if they were attacked, I certainly wouldn't think they had brought it upon themselves simply for dressing the way they do.

And if we're collecting statistics re abuse, you can add me. I don't really want to go into the details of what happened to me here, but I can assure you that, as a 12 year old, I was neither dressed provocatively nor inviting assault. nevertheless, it took me more than 20 years to finally accept that what had happened to me WAS NOT MY FAULT, IN ANY WAY. Women who are attacked or abused often spend many years trying to figure out what they could have done to prevent what happened to them, and trying not to feel somehow guilty or complicit. The last thing we need is some bitter, gum-sucking old bat telling us how men get such a bad deal these days, and women bring everything upon themselves. Screw you, Lizzie.